Hard choices confront Bay recovery task force

Jul. 15--PANAMA CITY -- It was a monumental task achieved under severe pressure.

The Bay County Long-Range Recovery Task Force has completed its six-month forced march to create a comprehensive Hurricane Michael recovery plan. Following an exhausting marathon of public meetings, workshops, research projects and report writing, the task force last week ratified its formal recovery report, which will go before the Bay County Commission for approval on Aug. 6. The 295-page document contains 316 separate projects and "action items" with a total cost estimate of $6.8 billion to enable the county and its seven cities to rebuild from the storm and kick-start the region's future growth.

That was the easy part, task force leader Robert Carroll acknowledged in an interview on Sunday. The hard work is just beginning, he said.

"We still have to figure out which (projects) that we will be doing first," Carroll said.

It will be no easy task.

Adding significant urgency to the county's work is a deadline requirement inserted into the congressional disaster relief bill signed into law by President Trump on June 6. The law earmarks almost $13 billion (out of a total of $19.1 billion in overall disaster aid) to localities hit by Hurricane Michael and other storms. The measure specifically requires that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development distribute at least 33 percent of its $2.21 billion disaster assistance funds -- or $729.3 million -- no later than Oct. 3. The measure further requires that the remainder of the appropriation be distributed to successful grant applicants by Dec. 3.

The other $11 billion, spread across 16 other federal departments and agencies, also will be disbursed after Oct. 1, but does not come with such a brutal deadline for processing and distribution.

Translation: the county task force has just 11 weeks to decide which projects have the higher priority for the HUD funds, and to prepare formal grant applications to be submitted to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, which will distribute the HUD money to localities.

It will be no easy undertaking. Of the 316 projects listed in the recovery plan, 114 cite HUD disaster relief funds as a primary source of revenue. And their total value of $4.4 billion is twice the amount of the entire HUD appropriation (although most of them also identify other federal, state or private capital as eligible sources for some of the projects' costs). Most of the 114 projects fall into three broad categories:

-- Housing: 27 separate projects and initiatives totaling $2.7 billion (the task force report did not break out their individual costs);

-- Infrastructure: 51 separate projects including stormwater management, public facility storm hardening and replacement, storm shelters, transportation and wastewater treatment, for a total of $532 million;

-- Economic Redevelopment: 14 projects totaling $414 million, of which two -- a $200 million conference center in Panama City Beach, and a $100 million aquarium for downtown Panama City -- comprise the majority of the funds.

The report also identifies the "primary sponsor" of each proposal, with Bay County leading the list at 61 projects dubbed of "countywide" significance. Other sponsors, where projects only apply to an individual locality or agency, include Panama City (15), Panama City Beach (14), Bay District Schools (7), Port Panama City (4), and Springfield and Parker (3 each).

The list of expensive projects also is long: Not counting the 27 housing initiatives (which do not show individual cost estimates), there are 41 projects valued in excess of $10 million. Sixteen of them are marked with Bay County as the primary sponsor. Another nine projects are for Panama City, five for Panama City Beach, four for Port Panama City, three for Bay District Schools, and one each for Springfield, Lynn Haven and Callaway. (Parker's top project, a new beach outfall facility, comes in at $8 million).

Carroll said he anticipates that the task force will be meeting with the county staff and the panel's consultants in the weeks ahead to determine which of the projects should have top billing.

Gary Yates, a senior partner in The Integrity Group, said he and the rest of the consultants working with the task force are well along in preliminary planning for the HUD deadline, and have been talking with state officials in the Department of Economic Opportunity as both groups await formal notification from the federal department that the funds are being prepared for release. Under existing law, HUD distributes the relief funds to the state, and local governments in turn apply to Tallahassee for funding specific projects.

"Putting the (HUD disaster relief) projects together is a priority," Yates said. "Some of the first money coming to Bay County will be from HUD."

Carroll said all hands have a busy time ahead of them.

"This is a challenge," he said.

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